Scott L Smith - Ex-Mormon

Posted 12/29/2003

Scott L. Smith, USA, about 1992 (age 30).

I graduated from seminary in High School but was turned off by the moral brainwashing
(even in the Boy Scouts) and the push for all Mormon boys to become LDS missionaries.
We can't even solve our own problems so why are we trying to save the world?

While a grownup in the Army I had a better attitude about the Church and believed
that the Word of Wisdom at least was a good thing back when everybody smoke and
drank. Mormons not living in Mormonville seemed a lot more real to me, a little
more grounded.

Then I made the mistake of going to Ricks College (now BYU Idaho) and was really
turned off by the "in loco parentis" attitude and hypocritical Mormon
moral philosophy brazenly showcased in utopian form. Back to relive my childhood.
When does one reach the point of no return? I did graduate but I had to really fake
it in Institute classes. A lot of wasted education dollars too. Must've been the
Devil's work (he he).

Intelligent Mormons can sometimes compartmentalize secular knowledge and the crap
that the Church teaches. In the mind of the educated Mormon there is no ultimate
conflict between True Science and True Religion. They of course know somehow that
they have the Truth!

Well, if that is so then what is Faith for? I'll tell you: It is an irrational belief
in something that sounds good because of fear of the unknown. True-science is not
a belief system or moral philosophy at all but a skeptical process of learning by
empirical observation and testing the limits of knowledge. Science has nothing to
do with moral philosophies and psychologies of social control.

I simply don't understand why otherwise rational people believe in an unknowable
God and why they obey the mores of any religion based on such myths. That is really
the crux of the matter. I can debate a Democrat or a Republican but I cannot debate
with someone's irrational belief in God.

Mormons are not the only true-belivers who are mentally challenged by any means.
Religionists universally believe that grownups need to be scared straight in order
to be good citizens? Atheists, however, are not necessarily amoral; they have even
been known to make good citizens.

Yeah, I figure that I might cease to exist when I die--but I have no more (or less)
knowledge of my ultimate fate than the religionist who believes in the "Santa
Claus in the sky" or the proverbial lake of fire and brimstone. So why fret
about it or try to please the Churchmen in their sad colored suits?

But what to do? One can drop out of the Church but it is hard to "excommunicate"
oneself from your entire family, people who define themselves by the Church.

Your folks just have to accept you for who you are or else move on themselves (no,
I'm not gay). So finally I stopped troubling myself over what my folks might think
and had the Church officially remove me from their membership rolls. My only regret
is that I didn't do it sooner, when I was 18.

But just to make sure that there was no misunderstanding I got it in writing. I
was not excommunicated, I quit. That was an important point for me.

You see, Mormons think based on some key assumed premises, namely that since they
have the one-true Gospel, that anybody who might not want it must essentially have
a morality "problem" of some kind--maybe a passion for the ponies or to
hang out in the coffee shop for a nasty cup of Joe after a hard day of proselyting
and procreating to make the Church grow. Truly infantile.

But the problem, as I see it, is not limited to Mormons but the influence of all
faiths in society. For starters, I think that all churches should pay income taxes
and have their property taxed. It is time to make "separation of church and
state" a reality in this country and stop subsidizing it with tax breaks.

And having lived in Mormonville I know what it will be like if Fundamentalist Christians ever manage to turn the entire country into "Red states." Somebody should
tell President Bush that he is not the President of Jesusland.